The Finish Line
by LanieSullivan
Summary: Extended tag for "Photo Finish" in which Amanda finally confronts Beaman on why he is so dismissive of her and gets some support form an unexpected source.


Disclaimer: "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" is copyrighted to Warner Brothers and Shoot the Moon Productions. The plot is mine, but not the characters. This story is meant for enjoyment purposes only. No infringement is intended.

Author's note: This is a little extended tag to "Photo Finish" in which Amanda finally confronts Beaman about why he is so dismissive of her abilities and gets a little unexpected support. My thoughts to explain why Beaman's attitude toward Amanda changed.

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"You gave up too easily," Amanda teased Lee with a devilish glint in her eyes while she tugged at his tie.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," she replied in a seductive tone with a come-hither nod of her head.

Lee was leaning in to kiss her, his lips barely making contact with hers when the door was opened behind him, startling both of them. Amanda abruptly released her grip on his tie and they looked guiltily toward the door to find Beaman staring at them with a scowl.

"I-I-I…uh…I just came to-" At seeing the perturbed look on Lee's face and the impatient one on Amanda's, Beaman glowered at them with a disgusted look. "Never mind...carry on." He quickly turned away and slammed the door behind him leaving Lee and Amanda looking quizzically at one another.

Amanda sighed while Lee, looking perturbed, growled, "that guy needs a good swift kick in the a-'

"Lee, don't," Amanda cut him off.

"But look at the way he's been treating you... You've been here three years and have more than proven yourself, but he still treats you as if you don't have more than half a brain. I oughtta'-"

"No," she interrupted again. "I don't want you getting in trouble for me. This is something that I have to deal with in my own way."

"Did I tell you that I had to blackmail him to get the Statik Aerospace files and you know what he said? That's just "busywork." He snorted. "Busywork, my ass. If he knew how much time and effort you put into that assignment and how you put everything else on hold..."

"Oho, I see what this is about. You're still bitter about the cabin."

"No, not bitter, just disappointed. It's like I said a couple of weeks ago, when we're not at work, we're not together enough."

"I know," she said sadly, "And I think we need to work on changing that very soon, but for now, I think I need to go have a talk with Beaman and get to the bottom of this once and for all."

"I should go with you," Lee suggested.

"Mm-mm," Amanda shook her head. "This is something that I should do on my own. He'll never show me any kind of respect if I always have you around being my guard dog."

"I kinda' like being your guard dog," He teased with a mischievous grin.

"Not this time," She planted a quick kiss to his lips and took off before he could argue anymore. Guessing that Beaman would be in his office, she made her way there and found him sitting behind his desk with a pouty look on his face. She tapped lightly at the open door. When he looked up, she said tentatively, "Do you have a minute?"

"I'm busy right now," Beaman replied tersely as he made a big show of perusing the files in front of him. "You're not the only trainee I have, you know. Everyone else has already turned in their assignments."

"You know there's a valid reason that I haven't turned mine in yet. In case you've forgotten, I was suspended over something I didn't do." When he didn't respond, she shook her head and entered the room anyway, glanced over at his desk and the piles of file folders on it. She couldn't resist goading him. "Just looks like busywork to me."

Beaman's head snapped up at her comment. "Scarecrow told you about that?" he questioned.

"Of course, he did. We're partners. We share everything," she answered.

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," he replied pointedly with a slightly revolted grimace.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean," Amanda fired back at him, feeling her temperature rise at his insinuating tone.

"Nothing," He turned his attention back to the files in front of him and began scribbling furiously.

Amanda reached across the desk and snatched the papers in front of him to force his attention back to her. "Oh, no, if you have something to say, just say it." When his jaw clenched and he remained silent, she added, "You have a real problem with me and I'd like to know what it is."

He rose from his seat and frowned at her. "You wanna' know? Fine, here it is! I have absolutely no respect for women who sleep their way to the top."

"I beg your pardon," Amanda questioned hotly, just as Francine interjected from the doorway, "You must really hate me then."

Amanda turned to see Francine standing there with a bemused look on her face while Lee stood behind her with a thick file in his hand. Francine gave her a wink and she couldn't help laughing. Seeing Lee with fist clenched, Amanda gave him a warning look, then turned back to Beaman and inquired, "Is that really what you think of me?"

Beaman snorted again and gestured at Lee. "Come on, it's obvious to anyone with eyes that you and Scarecrow are sleeping together."

Francine turned an arched eyebrow to Lee and gave him a questioning look and he just shrugged in response and gave her a wink and a sly grin. He then glared at Beaman and input, "Whether we are or aren't, that is no one's business but ours."

"It is when it affects your job performance," Beaman countered. "You blatantly disregarded protocol to continue investigating when the review board told you to stay out of it!"

"I was just watching my partner's back," Lee replied nonchalantly as the strolled lazily into the room and stood by Amanda's side.

"Yeah, well, I've seen the way you "watch her back," Beaman countered. While Francine tried to stifle a giggle, Beaman turned back to Amanda and spat, "Don't think that I'm dumb enough to be taken in by that wholesome housewife image like everyone else is."

"Well, don't think **I'm** dumb enough not to know that you were the one who initiated this new background check," Amanda parried.

When Beaman looked at her quizzically, Lee chimed in. "Yes, we know about that. You were just itching to dig up some kind of dirt on her, weren't you? I don't know what you were trying to prove by doing that. Were you hoping to get her thrown out of the program? Why? What was it? Jealousy because she's a better agent than you could ever hope to be?"

Ignoring Lee's jibe, Beaman focused on Amanda and said, "I don't know just how you managed to wriggle out of the charges against you, but-"

"Because it wasn't true," Amanda cut him off. "And I proved that."

"It was a ridiculous charge to begin with, Francine added, "Speaking of which, Billy wanted you to have these back." She approached Amanda and handed her back her keys. "That's the whole reason I came down here looking for you. I ran into Lee and he said this is where you were." She then turned a cool glare on Beaman and said, "You have to admit that Amanda has a point. She did prove that Jake Williamson was setting her up. As for her "sleeping her way to the top," that's even more ridiculous than the idea of her being some kind of flag-burning, riot-starting radical. Who do you thinks she slept with to be paired with Lee in the first place? You'd have to be implying that it was Billy, since he was the one who assigned her to work with him at the beginning and I think we _all_ know Billy better than that. He's been a devoted family man for years."

"You know something, this isn't getting us anywhere," Lee said with a frustrated sigh. "I suggest we just get outta' here." He then turned to Amanda. "Weren't we just talking about finding some trouble to get into?"

Amanda stood silent for a moment, admiring Lee's restraint, knowing that he'd like nothing more than to knock Beaman flatter than her cheery blue kitchen throw rug. She gave him a flirty smile and replied, "You know that there's no one who can find trouble better than me."

"That's for sure," Francine muttered.

Beaman gaped at him, then not knowing what else to say, fired at Amanda, "Don't forget, you haven't finished with your review of Statik Aerospace. Don't think I'm going to let you slide on that just because you did all that extracurricular work to clear your name. That doesn't count for class credit."

Amanda smiled sweetly at him. "Well, I proved that their security system is faulty, didn't I? What more do you want?" She then turned to Lee with a smug grin. "That's something that even the original reviewer missed."

"Hey!" Lee protested. "Give me a little credit, would ya'? Living in an apartment, I don't have any floors to wax, so I'd have never caught that connection like you did. I just thought you were being overly obsessive."

"Well, that was just pure dumb luck," Francine said.

Lee glowered at Francine and snapped defensively, "You mean to say that Amanda discovered it by pure dumb luck? You-"

"No," Francine interrupted with a amused look at Amanda calling him out on what he'd overlooked in his original review. "I mean it was pure dumb luck that the case got assigned to Amanda. I mean, who else here would have noticed that thing about floor wax or have taken the time to do the math on how much wax they actually needed."

"Right," Amanda concurred. "Most agents would have written it off as a simple ordering error, if they'd even caught it all, kind of like someone might overlook the useless security cameras in places they weren't needed and lack of them where they were needed." She gave Lee a pointed look.

Lee beamed with pride at Amanda, before turning a superior grin to Beaman. He was man enough to admit when he'd been beaten. "Well, if you ask me, it's just a good thing that her trainer can't keep track of what she's already done so that she had to pick another assignment. So maybe there's some merit to your half-assed approach after all, Beaman. If you hadn't goofed to begin with, we might never have caught onto what Williamson was doing." He then dropped the file he held onto the desk. "Speaking of which..."

Beaman scowled and Lee and asked, "What's this?"

"The reason that I came down here. It's a copy of Amanda's report to the review board," Lee answered smugly. Truth be told, it was just an excuse to make sure that Beaman wasn't continuing to be disrespectful to his fiancee', but it did kill two birds with one stone. "That should more than cover her class requirement and that will give you some "busywork" to do." He then gave Amanda an impish smirk as he slipped his hand into hers, "And since he'll be busy that will free you up for the rest of the day so we can find that trouble to get into."

"Sounds like a plan," Amanda said with a smile as she and Lee walked to the door hand in hand, but they were stopped for a moment by Beaman's voice.

"Just don't forget, you have your undercover operations class starting on Monday," Beaman threw out with a challenging grin. "We'll be going over how to establish and maintain a good cover."

Lee and Amanda grinned at one another and in unison, said, "Piece of cake," and then exited the room, leaving Beaman and Francine staring after them as Amanda was saying to Lee, "Don't think I don't know the real reason you came down here."

"I just thought I'd help free you up so we could spend some real time together," Lee countered.

"Oh, is that what it was? I thought maybe you just wanted to show Beaman…"

As their voices faded down the hall, Beaman shifted awkwardly. "So...uh...F-Francine. W-were you serious in what you said about...you know...sleeping your way to the t-top?" Beaman stammered nervously.

Francine gave him her patented arched eyebrow and with a salacious grin replied, "What do you think? You know, there is a reason that I'm so good at my "happy hooker' routine."

"Oh, come on," Beaman scoffed.

"Listen, you need to lay off Amanda," she stated bluntly all traces of amusement now gone from her face.

"Look who's talking. You've been on her case since she started," He challenged her.

"True, but three years of her being here ought to prove by now that she belongs here."

"So you don't think she earned her spot because of her association with Stetson," He questioned.

"Not a bit," she answered confidently. "You forget that being Billy's assistant, I see all the orders and memos that hit his desk, sometimes before he does and the order for her to be given a full-time spot and for formal entry into the agent candidate program came directly from Smyth. Surely, you don't think she slept with _him_ to get that job or that as much as he despises Lee's recklessness, he'd have given her that kind of job just based on Lee's recommendation, do you?"

He realized that he couldn't argue with that logic. "Okay, okay, I get your point, but still...this...this thing between them...you don't think it's a bit...I don't know...weird?"

Francine laughed and said, "Well, I learned about two years ago not to discredit Amanda anymore. There's a lot more to her than there appears to be. Just like you... I mean, who'd have thought you'd ever hook up with Roxanne?"

"H-how...h-how did you know about that?' he sputtered.

"Who do you think gave Lee that little tidbit in the first place? While we're on the subject, if you wanna' talk about women who sleep their way to the top, maybe you oughtta' ask Roxanne how she got out of the steno pool." She winked at him and made her way into the hallway, but then thought better of it, turned back to his office and added, "Oh, and by the way whatever you think is going on between Lee and Amanda, I'd keep that to yourself. Let's just let them pretend they're keeping their little secret."

Beaman couldn't help laughing. "You know, for a seasoned veteran like him, he's not that great at hiding how he feels about her."

"Sounds like someone else I know," she replied with a knowing smirk. She knew all too well about the little crush that he had on her. "Let's just hope that you're better at teaching your class how to maintain a cover than you are at maintaining one yourself." She then exited for good this time leaving him pondering her words.

Beaman blushed furiously as he thought of all the times he'd made a ninny of himself at office parties and to take his mind off his embarrassment, began to peruse Amanda's report, pausing for a moment as a horrifying thought struck him. How exactly was it that Francine had gotten the job as Billy's assistant? Was she being serious in her comments? With her, you just never could tell. Was it Billy? She'd made it clear that Amanda couldn't have slept with him since he's a "family man," but was that really just a cover? Was it Smyth? She HAD made a crack about Amanda with Smyth. Was he the type? He tried to imagine it, and then wished he hadn't as the thought caused him to shudder. He shook his head, "Nope, no way," he said aloud to his now empty office and returned to his task. As he read, he had to admit that Lee had been right, Amanda _was_ better than he was. He made a mental note to acknowledge that more often.


End file.
